The Orthodox Word No. 44

THE ORTHODOX WORD

A Bimonthly Periodical
OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF SAINT HERMAN OF ALASKA

Established with the blessing of His Eminence the late John (Maximovitch), Archbishop of Western America and San Francisco, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia PLATINA, CALIFORNIA 96076

1972, Vol. 8, no. 3 (44)
May - June

CONTENTS

103 The Miracles of Archbishop John Maximovitch

104 The Life of Saint Cyril of White Lake by Andrew Moraviev

114 Documents of the Catacomb Church: Russia and the Church Today

123 The Orthodox Spiritual Life: The Counsels of the Elder Nazarius (XI, XII, Conclusion)

147 Orthodox Bibliography

COVER: The towers of St. Cyril of Belozersk Monastery. Page 105: the original portrait of St. Cyril by St. Dionysius of Glushitsa.

Copyright 1972 by The Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
Published bimonthly by The Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.
Second-class postage paid at Platina. California.
Yearly subscription $5, two years $9, three years $12.
All inquiries should be directed to:
THE ORTHODOX WORD, PLATINA, CALIFORNIA 96076
Office of Publication: Beegum Gorge Road, Platina, California


The Miracles of Archbishop John Maximovitch

SIX YEARS after his repose, the realization is increasing among the true Orthodox flock in America and throughout the world that the Blessed Archbishop John Maximovitch is in truth "an ascetic-saint of universal significance," as he was called by one of his priests even when his holy relics had just been sealed. And truly, this severe ascetic, clairvoyant pastor abounding in love, man of God and wonderworker, pillar of strict Orthodoxy, new apostle and inspirer of genuine Orthodoxy is already virtually a patron saint of the true Orthodox Christians of these last times. It is the hope of many that, in God's time, his name will be officially entered into the Calendar of Orthodox saints. Anticipating this time, with this issue the Brotherhood of St. Herman begins the publication of the miracles of Archbishop John which it has collected (apart from those that have already appeared in The Orthodox Word), as in a way a sequel to its earlier series of the miracles of St. Herman of Alaska. Some of these miracles are from Vladika's lifetime, and some from after his repose; some might be considered "major," and some "minor." But all alike show that Blessed John has found favor with God and is an intercessor for Orthodox Christians today who turn to him in faith and ask his prayers.

I. PROTECTOR OF TRAVELLERS (PASCHA, 1972)

Archbishop John, in fulfillment of his missionary and archpastoral duties, travelled by airplane so often and over such long distances – the final time when his relics were flown from Seattle to San Francisco, where they were entombed that he has been suggested as the logical candidate for patron saint of travellers by air. As the following account reveals, he may be considered also a protector of other travellers. This account was written by a Russian woman who was close to Vladika in Shanghai as well as later and has often asked and received his protection and help. Vladika John used to stop to visit her family whenever travelling by automobile between San Francisco and Seattle, and he baptized her husband and children.

ON THE DAY of Pascha we were returning home to Redding. We left San Francisco after being in church and greeting Archbishop Anthony and our beloved Vladika John. We were hurrying home so as to spend the holy day with my mother, who because of old age and illness could not go to church. The traffic was heavy and we did not feel like talking, apart from occasionally exchanging our impressions of the splendid service and the singing. My husband was driving the car. Our 7-year-old daughter was playing in the back seat, and I was sitting in front beside my husband. I had slept very little, since I had come from the Cathedral early in the morning. I decided to doze a little, and evidently I fell asleep.

And then I saw that the door seemed to open by my right arm, and Vladika John came out and impatiently called us toward him. The thought came to me our time had come! At the same time a shadow passed in front of Vladika; it seemed to be the shadow of a priest. I sat up and said to myself: "May Thy holy will be done in everything, O Lord!" I opened my eyes and saw that from the left side – from my husband's side-a Volkswagen bus was hurtling toward us. I froze, and then I thought: have we died already, or not yet? For some reason I was reconciled to this and felt no panic; and, shameful to admit, I did not even think to ask the Lord God to forgive my sins or think to ask His help. The bus flew by so close that, as the saying goes, if there had been a pancake on one wheel there would have been a colossal catastrophe. When I looked at my husband I saw that he had turned very pale and his hands were shaking, and I knew that we were alive. I sat back again and thanked the Lord for the miraculous deliverance from catastrophe, and here my thoughts turned to the vision of Vladika.

What did it mean? Vladika had called us toward him as if with impatience, as if it were a matter of life or death. But it was I who had seen Vladika, and my husband was driving the car. I had said nothing to him, had not warned him-there had been no time. What did all this mean? At this time my husband saw that I wasn't sleeping and told me of our narrow escape. I told him that I knew, that I hadn't been sleeping. "Vladika John woke me up; he warned me." And I told him what I had seen. My husband replied, "But why didn't Vladika warn me, why didn't I see him, and why didn't you tell me anything?" I reflected. True, I had said nothing to him. But how could Vladika have appeared to my husband – after all, he was driving the car. Besides, I believe that Vladika knows my husband better than anyone else, since he baptized him. I believe that Vladika inspired him to turn toward the right side before the oncoming bus began to come toward us. I had seen the oncoming bus and at that moment our car was already at the extreme right side of the road. There was no sudden movement to the right, and our car was going straight ahead, whereas if one would try to turn in an emergency to avoid a collision the rear of the car might be closer to the oncoming car.

Vladika had warned us both! I looked at my husband and said: "How do you know that you were not warned?" He didn't argue with me. I think he also believes that Vladika had helped us on that marvellous day of Pascha!

Redding, California
Valentina Harvey


THE LIFE OF
Saint Cyril of Belozersk
OR WHITE LAKE, IN THE NORTHERN THEBAID

By ANDREW MURAVIEV
From THE RUSSIAN THEBAID OF THE NORTH, St. Petersburg, 1855


ST. CYRIL OF WHITE LAKE
†1429. Commemorated on June 9

TROPARION, TONE 1

AS A FLOWER in the wilderness didst thou blossom even as David, O Father Cyril,+ uprooting the thorns of evil passions,+ and didst gather there a multitude of disciples,+ who were instructed in fear of God and in thy teaching,+ whom as a loving father thou didst not leave to the end,+ visiting them that we all may sing:+ Glory be to Him Who gave thee firmness,+ glory be to Him Who crowned thee,+ glory be to Him Who worketh healings for all through thee.


SAINT CYRIL WAS BORN of God-fearing parents in the capital of Moscow; his name in the world was Cosmas. From childhood he was brought up in the fear of God and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and this spiritual upbringing became the spiritual inheritance of the monks of his monastery. His parents at their death entrusted the youth to their relative, Timothy Voluevich, who served as guardsman to the Grand Prince Dimitry Donskoy and surpassed in honor and wealth many boyars; but the wealth of the nobleman had no effect upon the young orphan, who concentrated all his thoughts upon God, and constantly devoted himself to the Church, in fasting and prayer, not desiring anything else but the monastic treasure. Seeing his virtues growing with years, the boyar drew the youth to himself and even put him above all his household; but this did not change the thoughts of the lover of solitude, but only saddened him with the worry that it would be more difficult for him to attain his desired goal. He placed his sorrow upon God, and God, foreseeing a great monk in the young Cosmas, deigned to assist him in the attainment of monasticism.

It happened that Abbot Stephen of Mahra,1 a man renowned for his virtues, visited the capital. Cosmas long awaited his arrival, having heard much about him, and with tears revealed to him his secret thought, asking that he not cast him away, for the sake of the Lord, Who did not cast away a single sinner. Stephen was touched at the sight of such zeal and, foreseeing in him a chosen vessel of the Holy Spirit, consoled him, promising to fulfill his desire. They began to think among themselves how to perform the tonsure. Because the boyar Timothy would not in any way consent to this, Saint Stephen decided simply to clothe the youth in the ryasson and named him Cyril, and left the rest to God's will. Then he himself came to the boyar. Timothy, delighted at his visit, met him with honor at the entrance to his house and asked his blessing. "Cyril, who implores God for you, blesses you," said Stephen, and when with surprise the boyar asked who this Cyril was, the abbot replied to him: "Cosmas, your former relative, but now a monk laboring for the Lord and praying for you."

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1 St. Stephen is commemorated on July 14.


These words were difficult for the boyar; filled with grief, he spoke with irritation to Stephen. The holy man, however, not crossing the threshold, replied: "It has been told us by the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, to remain where we are obeyed and received, but if not, then to cast the dust from off our feet, as a testimony against those who do not accept us" (Matt. 10:14). Stephen went away; but the God-fearing wife of the boyar, hearing such an admonition which was more Christ's than Stephen's, began to reproach her husband: how could he offend such an elder? And the boyar, repenting, sent to have him return. Both asked each other's forgiveness, the boyar permitted the newly-named Cyril to fulfill his heart's desire, and Stephen rejoiced that he had acquired a brother. He announced this to the new monk, who in fulfilment of his vows gave all his belongings to the poor, not even thinking of leaving anything to himself for old age, because of bodily infirmity.

Before returning to Mahra, Abbot Stephen brought the new monk to the Simonov Monastery, which had then been established in a new place by Archimandrite Theodore, the nephew of St. Sergius of Radonezh. With joy he received Cyril and made him a full monk, entrusting his supervision to the Elder Michael, who led a most strict life in the monastery and was later bishop in the city of Smolensk. Cyril was inflamed with fervor to live the life of his elder and, seeing his extreme labor, tried with absolute obedience to imitate him in everything. Fasting seemed to him sweet, and nakedness in winter seemed as warmth. By wasting his flesh he enlightened his soul and almost did not know sleep. He asked his elder to allow him to partake of food but once in two or three days; however, this wise preceptor did not permit this, ordering that he share the meals with the brethren, only not to satiety. After spending all night in the reading of the Psalter with many prostrations, at the first ringing of the bell, before all the others, he was to be found in church for the singing of Matins. In his cell he shook off the temptations of demons by the name of Jesus and the sign of the Cross. Some time later, the Archimandrite gave him an obedience in the bakery, and there he began to labor even more: he himself carried water, chopped wood and, carrying warm bread to the brethren, received in its place warm prayers for himself, being praised by all for his untiring zeal and devotion. He was unmerciful only to his flesh, in order that, according to the Apostle's word, while the flesh is mortified the spirit might be strong.


St. Cyril of White Lake, an ancient icon


The Hodigitria Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God which belonged to St. Cyril


IT HAPPENED at times that St. Sergius1 would come to the Simonov Monastery in order to visit his nephew Theodore, but before anything else he would seek out Cyril in the bakery and for a long time speak with him about what was profitable for the soul. Both of them attended to the spiritual work together: one sowing the seeds of virtue, the other watering them with tears, in order, according to the expression of the Psalmist, to reap in joy what was sowed in tears (Ps. 125:5). All the brethren were astonished: how could St. Sergius, neglecting the Superior and all the monks, spend time only with Cyril? But they did not show any envy towards the youth, understanding his virtue. From the bakery he was transferred, by the will of the Superior, to the kitchen, and there he labored no less, at the sight of temporal fire being inspired to the remembrance of the eternal, undying fire. "Have patience, Cyril," he said to himself, "so that by this fire you might save yourself from the fire to come." Such feeling did God grant him that he could not even eat the bread which he baked without tears, and all the brethren looked upon him not as upon a man, but as upon an Angel of God.

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1 For the Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh, see The Orthodox Word, 1968, no. 3, pp. 94ff.


Dismayed by the general attention, humble Cyril began to be a fool, in order to escape from vain honors. The Superior, seeing his foolishness, imposed a forty-day penance on him. Cyril accepted this with gladness, and later he was subjected to a stricter punishment; just as the proud delight in decorations, so do the humble delight in dishonor. The Superior finally discovered that it was not because of pride but out of humility that Cyril was foolish, and he became more indulgent.

The thought came to Cyril to ask to leave the kitchen for his cell, not for rest, but for more solitude; and he prayed to the Most Pure Virgin to arrange this for his good. At the same time it came to the mind of the Archimandrite to have a certain book copied for himself; and he ordered the young monk to occupy himself in his cell with this copying. Then, however, Cyril began to notice of himself that during his nightly prayers he did not have so much feeling as he had had in the kitchen, notwithstanding the multitude of people there; therefore with tears he asked the Mother of God to restore to him his former feeling; and again the Superior ordered him to occupy himself in the kitchen. With joy the Saint obeyed, and for five more years he remained in this difficult obedience, during the day scorched by fire and at night suffering from cold, but not permitting himself to wear anything warm. After this the Archimandrite, although against the Saint's will, brought Cyril to the Bishop to have him consecrated to the priestly rank. Here the Saint began a new work, strictly performing his turn of service in church, without, however, leaving his previous monastic obedience in the bakery and kitchen.

Soon Archimandrite Theodore was chosen Bishop of Rostov, and in his place in Simonov St. Cyril was elevated, in the year 1388, notwithstanding his tears and refusal. Remembering the word of the Gospel, that to whom much is given much shall be demanded, the new superior devoted himself to yet greater labors, not at all raising himself up in haughtiness over the honor of his rank. He remained the same as he had been before, with all humility and love, revering the elder as his brothers and the younger caressing as children. From everywhere princes and noblemen ran to him for the sake of his spiritual conversation, interrupting his solitude; and so he decided to leave his post and withdraw into his cell, even though the brethren much entreated him to remain with them. But Cyril did not wish to have any more care of external things. Because it was not possible to leave the monastery without a superior, a certain Sergius was elevated to be Archimandrite, who was later Bishop in Ryazan. But the more the Saint avoided the glory of men, the more God glorified him; an extraordinary number of people gathered around him, because his word dissolved in the spiritual salt to the sweetness of those who heard him.

However, envy arose in the new Archimandrite at the glory of the Saint, and he became dissatisfied with him; the Saint, however, was not in the least offended by this, but rather gave place to anger and left to live in solitude in the old Simonov monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos. He reflected on where he might further conceal himself from worldly cares and fervently prayed concerning this to the Most Pure Virgin. He had the custom late in the evening, after the cell rule, to read also the Akathist before sitting down to partake of some sleep. Once, when he was singing the Akathist before the Icon of the Theotokos and had reached the eighth kontakion: "Seeing the strange Nativity, let us become strangers to the world and transport our minds to heaven" – suddenly he heard a voice: "Cyril, go forth from here to White Lake (Belo-ozero); there I have prepared a place for you where you can be saved." Together with this voice there shone a great light from the northern side; the Saint opened the window of his cell and saw as if by a finger the place shown to him where now the monastery stands. His heart was filled with joy from the voice and the vision, and all night he remained in prayer; but this night was for him already as most bright day.

Some time later the monk Therapontes,1 who had been tonsured with him in Simonov, came to him from White Lake. Cyril began to question him: "Is there a place on White Lake where it would be possible to live in silence?" "Many such places are there for solitude," replied Therapontes; but the Saint did not reveal to him his vision. By mutual agreement they left old Simonov for the distant White Lake, and after many difficult days of travel they finally reached their desired goal. But no matter how much they traversed those deserted places, not one of them did the Saint like as a place to stay; he was constantly seeking for the place that had been shown to him from above, and at last he found it. Suddenly Cyril recognized this place as if it had long been familiar to him; and coming to love it with all his heart, h; prayerfully declared: "Here is my rest unto the ages, here shall I dwell, since the Most Pure One decided upon this place; blessed be the Lord God, Who has heard my prayer." Here he erected a cross on the desired hill and sang a canon of thanksgiving to the Most Pure Virgin; and only then did he reveal to his fellow ascetic Therapontes his secret vision, which had showed this place to him, and together they glorified God. The ascetics at first put up a hut, then began to dig a cell in the earth; but after having spent some time together, they separated for greater solitude. The blessed Cyril remained in his place, and Therapontes removed himself some fifteen miles away to another lake, and there he erected a church and monastery in the name of the Nativity of the Mother of God.

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1 St. Therapontes of Belozersk and Mozhaisk is commemorated on May 27.


THE PLACE where St. Cyril established himself was surrounded by water almost on all sides, and a thick forest grew on this small area where there had never been a dwelling of man. The farmer Isaiah, who lived not far from there, told how many years before the arrival of Cyril there had been heard on that place a ringing and as it were a singing of choirs; many came at the sound of this ringing in order to see where it came from, but to their surprise they returned without seeing anything. In his underground cell the holy anchorite labored against the tricks of the unseen enemy; only occasionally there would come to him two peasants from the surrounding region, Auxentius and Matthew (who later was a candlelighter in his monastery); and with them he went about the desert. Once it happened, by the instigation of the enemy, that such a heavy sleep began to overpower the Saint that he had to lie down and asked his companions to sit near him until he fell asleep; for he_could not even reach his cell. He prostrated himself upon the earth under a tall tree; but having barely closed his eyes, he heard a voice saying, "Run, Cyril." Jumping up because of the unusual voice, he sprang from that place, and at that moment an enormous tree fell across it. The Saint understood the deceit of the devil; he prayed to the Lord that such a heavy sleep might be taken away from him, and from that time on he could stay without sleep for many days at a time, vanquishing the enemy's wiles by means of wakefulness.

At another time, when St. Cyril was felling trees, clearing a place for the vegetable garden, and gathering branches, from the heat and dryness the branches caught fire. The smoke, spread by the wind, surrounded the Saint on all sides, so that he did not know how to escape the fire and smoke. Suddenly he saw before him a man in the form of his guardian Timothy, who, taking him by the hand, said, "Follow me"; and following him he came out of the midst of the fire. Thus images of childhood came to him in saving vis ions, by God's grace.

Another great trial occurred to the Saint. Not far from his solitary cell there lived a farmer who did not like his being nearby. Taught by the devil, he decided to burn the Saint's cell, but sudden terror would come upon him every time he wished to fulfill his infernal idea. Once he had already set fire to the fence and had begun to run, but stopping not far away, he saw that the fire he had set had been snuffed out by itself. Then, with a feeling of repentance, he fell to the feet of the blessed one, confessing his guilt to him, andCyril meekly let him go. Soon that same man returned to him, begging him to tonsure him a monk; and to the end of his life he remained in obedience to the Saint.

Not long afterwards there came to him two monks whom he loved, from the Simonov Monastery, Zebediah and Dionysius. This was the first consolation which he had in his wilderness; he received them with love and allowed them to live together with him. Later from there came a third monk, Nathaniel, who later was cellarer in his monastery; and then many began to gather around him, asking the tonsure. Cyril, feeling that the time of his silence in the desert was ended, began freely to accept everyone, granting to them the monastic tonsure. With the addition to the brotherhood, the necessity of a church for common assembly began to be felt, and all the monks asked him to build them a church. But because the place was far removed from human habitations, there was nowhere to look for wood cutters. The Saint, according to his constant habit, turned before all to the Most Pure Virgin, entrusting all to Her kind will, and soon woodsmen arrived of themselves, having been summoned by no one, and they built a church out of logs in the name of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God.

When, however, it was announced in the vicinity that the church was built and that soon there would be a monastery there, the rumor spread that Cyril, as the former Archimandrite of Simonov Monastery, had brought with him from the capital many valuables. A certain Boyar Theodore envied this fictitious wealth and sent robbers to seize it at night. But upon coming close to the monastery, they saw a multitude of people shooting arrows; and after waiting for a long time for them to depart, they finally departed themselves, not committing any evil. The next night the robbers saw the same apparition and still more armed people appeared surrounding the monastery; in awe they ran to announce this to the nobleman who had sent them. Theodore was astonished and, supposing that someone from the nobility was paying a visit to St. Cyril, dispatched men to find out who the visitors were; for he had heard that for over a week no one had visited them. Only then did he come to his senses, understanding that the Most Pure Mother of God was protecting the Saint of God. Hurrying to the monastery, with tears he acknowledged to the Saint his sin. The Saint, consoling him, said: "Believe me, child Theodore, I have nothing in this life except the clothes which you see on me, and a few books." From this time on the nobleman had great faith in the blessed Cyril, so that when he visited him he would bring him fish or other food.

THE GLORY of the great ascetic spread to distant regions. It was then that there came the keeper of silence, Ignatius, a man of perfect virtue whose life was so strict that none of the brethren could equal it. He served as a model for them next after Cyril. It is said that during his thirty years of labors he never lay down to rest, but only partook of a little sleep while standing up, leaning a little. He attained a great height of poverty and unacquisitiveness.

When the brotherhood had grown, St. Cyril established a strict rule for it, in order that everyone would be in his own place during church services, not daring to talk in church or to leave before the end of the church service.

St. Cyril never allowed himself to sit in church and his feet were as unshakable pillars. At the monastic meal no conversation was to be heard and the food was most frugal, consisting only of two dishes, and water was the only drink. From the refectory all departed in silence, not inclining to any conversation or to go to each other's cells. The love of his cell was so deeply rooted in every one of St. Cyril's disciples that when one of them, St. Martinian1 (who was later superior of the monastery of St. Therapontes), happened to enter the cell of another brother after the meal, the Elder asked him why he had transgressed the monastic rule, St. Martinian answered him, smiling, "I am afraid that having entered my own cell I shall have no strength to leave it; but I have some business with my brother." But even at this St. Cyril replied to him: "First go to your cell in order to perform there the required rule of prayer, and then go to the brother, because your cell shall teach you everything." No one in the monastery dared to receive letters or gifts without the Saint's knowledge; unopened letters were brought to him, and without his blessing the monks could send nothing. Likewise, no one dared to call anything his own, even in his own cell; and silver and gold were kept only in the monastery treasury, from where the brothers received all that was necessary. Even when someone wanted to quench his thirst, he could receive water nowhere but in the refectory, since in the cell it was not permitted to keep either bread or water, but only icons and books; and therefore doors were never locked. All monks strove with humility and love to forestall each other in the church services or in the monastery's work, laboring not for men but for God, and all vain talk was foreign to them; all was done among them in silence. The Saint served for all as an example, and while forbidding others luxury, he himself wore rags. Sometimes, in remembrance of his labors at Simonov, he would come to the kitchen to help in preparing the brothers' food, and he strictly forbade every intoxicating drink in his monastery.

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1 St. Martinian of Belozersk is commemorated on Jan. 12 and Oct. 17.


St. Cyril's heart was to such an extent filled with love toward God that at the serving of the Divine Liturgy and during church readings he could not restrain tears of devotion, and especially copiously did he shed them when by himself in his cell during the performance of the rule of prayer. When there happened to be an insufficiency of bread and the brethren exhorted him to send a request for alms to one of the Christ-loving neighbors, with fervent faith he remonstrated: "If God and the Most Pure Virgin shall forget us in this place, what else shall remain in this life?" Thus he instructed the brethren not to inconvenience laymen with alms; but he had a disciple by the name of Anthony, versed in spiritual and secular matters, whom he sent once a year to buy all the necessities for the monastery. The rest of the year no one left the monastery, and if there were sent any alms they were received as a gift of God.

Princess Agrippina, the wife of Prince Mazhaisky-Belozersky, on whose holdings the monastery stood, had special faith in blessed Cyril. Once during Lent she wished to give the brethren fish, but the Saint in no way consented to permit such an infringement of the rule, saying that if he himself should give an example for the infringement of the monastic rule which he himself had established, then after his death would it not be said that Cyril himself had allowed the eating of fish during Lent? The Princess withdrew, extolling his strictness.

THE LORD REWARDED His servant with the gift of foresight, so that he could read the secret thoughts of his disciples. A certain Theodore, attracted by the news of the Saint's holy life, desired to enter the brotherhood, but after some time the enemy of mankind instilled in him such hatred for St. Cyril that not only could he not look at him, but he could not even listen to his voice. Disconcerted by his thoughts, he came to the strict Elder Ignatius the silent to confess his oppressed state of soul and the fact that, because of his hatred for Cyril, he wished to leave the monastery. Ignatius consoled him somewhat, strengthened him with prayer, and convinced him to stay on trial one year more; but the year passed and his hatred did not abate. Theodore decided to reveal his secret thought to Cyril himself, but upon entering his cell he became ashamed before the Elder's gray hairs and could not pronounce anything. He wanted to leave the cell, but then the foreseeing Elder, understanding what was hidden in his soul, began himself to speak of hatred such as that which Theodore nourished for him. Torn by conscience, the monk fell to the Elder's feet and prayed for forgiveness of his sin; but the Saint answered meekly: "Do not sorrow, my brother. All have been in error about me; you alone understand the truth and all my unworthiness, for who am I, sinful and unworthy?" He sent him away in peace, promising that in future such temptation would not befall him, and from that time on Theodore remained in perfect love toward the great Abba.

When visitors came to the monastery and remained to live there, the Elder in his foresight could tell his disciples in advance which of the newcomers would remain with him and which would leave the monastery; and all happened according to his word. With the gift of foresight he combined the gift of healing, which began to flow from him even during his lifetime. A certain Athanasius, a neighboring landowner, became completely infirm, and he was advised to turn for help to the Saint. "If only you can go to the blessed Cyril and ask him to pray for you, you shall be healed," a pious man told him. With faith he sent to ask for the Elder's prayers, and his health was restored when he was sprinkled with holy water which the Saint sent to him. Similarly, the widow of Prince John of Kargolom, who had been blind for many years, asked the Saint to pray for her, and immediately her eyes were healed.

Even without seeing him, St. Cyril healed a certain boyar by the name of Roman, by appearing to him in a light sleep when he was severely ill; at the word of the Elder, the sick man sent to his monastery for holy water, and by drinking it he received health. When the healed man came to the monastery, he was surprised, recognizing in St. Cyril the wondrous elder who had appeared to him in sleep. Once, during the feast day of the Theophany, an infirm man was carried into the monastery, hoping to be healed by immersion in the "Jordan"; but he was too late for the blessing of the water. The Saint ordered him afterwards to enter the water with faith, and in truth he was healed after being immersed three times, as once was Naaman the Syrian.

The truthfulness with which the healings that occurred are described may be judged by the following example. A woman blind for three years was brought to the holy man and asked for his prayers. St. Cyril anointed her eyes with holy water and wished to find out whether the Lord had forgiven her. "What do you see?" he asked the woman. "I see a book which you are holding," she replied; then, "I see a lake and people walking." And so little by little she began to see objects near her, just as the blind man of the Gospel who gained his sight, to whom at first men seemed as walking trees (Mark 8:24). 127

Once there came to St. Cyril a man from the neighboring village and asked him to pray for his sick friend, from whose nostrils and mouth there gushed forth a bloody foam; but the Elder, merciful to others, this time by his foresight did not wish to grant mercy to the sick man and did not even allow him to lie beyond the monastery enclosure. To the sick man's friend, who importuned him, he said, "Believe me, my child, this sickness did not occur from chance, but as a punishment for his fornication. If he consent to correct himself, I believe the Lord will heal him; but if not, he will suffer worse things." When this was conveyed to the sick man, he was awed at the denunciation and promised to correct himself; with sincerity he confessed all his sins to the holy man and by his prayers was healed, not only in body but also in soul, having received a penance for the cleansing of his sins.

Many others, all manner of sick, blind, possessed and feeble were brought to St. Cyril, as his disciples have testified, and he healed all of them, anointing them only with holy water and oil; they returned home healthy, thanking God and His Saint, Cyril. And here is an example when the miraculous power of healing, given by God's grace, attained even to the resurrection of the dead. A certain man afflicted by a burdensome disease was brought to the monastery, asking only that he be tonsured before his death. The Saint did not scorn his holy desire and tonsured him a monk with the name of Dalmatius. After several days he began to die and asked to be allowed the Holy Mysteries; but the priest lingered in the performance of the Liturgy, and when he brought the Holy Gifts into the cell, the sick man had already died. The unnerved priest hurried to announce this to the Saint, and St. Cyril was much grieved at it; soon he closed the window of his cell and began to pray. A little later the cell-attendant who looked after Dalmatius came and, knocking on the window pane, announced to the blessed one that Dalmatius was getting better and asked for Holy Communion. Immediately Cyril sent for the priest in order to give the Holy Mysteries to the brother; and although the priest was sure that Dalmatius had already died, he did not want to contradict the Saint. But how great was his surprise when he saw Dalmatius sitting on his bed! As soon as he had received the Holy Mysteries, Dalmatius began to say farewell to all the brethren and quietly departed to the Lord.

The Lord glorified His Saint not only by the gift of healing, but also by other miracles. There was once insufficient wine for the church services, and it was necessary to serve the Divine Liturgy. The priest came to announce this to St. Cyril, and he asked the lamplighter Niphon whether there were really no wine. Hearing from him that there was not, as if doubting he ordered that the vessel in which wine was always kept should be brought to him. Niphon obeyed, and with surprise he brought the vessel so overflowing with wine that it even gushed out, and for a long time the wine did not diminish in the vessel, as once had occurred with the oil of the widow, by the word of the Prophet Elijah.

There once occurred a famine in the region, when mercifully bread was distributed to everyone, even though the monastery owned no lands from which to obtain bread. All there was to be had was the fruit of the monks' labors, for the alms that were brought were scarcely sufficient for themselves. But despite this, the more bread was distributed, the more it increased, so that the monks distributing the bread themselves understood the miracle. "Cyril increased the wine for the Liturgy, and he has likewise increased the bread for feeding the hungry by the aid of the Mother of God," they said; and thus it continued until the new harvest. And if sometimes later there occurred a scarcity of anything, the brethren did not even have to bother the Superior with this, knowing that by his prayer all would be given by God.

The Saint himself, filled with firm faith in the Lord and His Most Pure Mother, often manifested his unmercenariness. The boyar Roman, who had great trust in him, granted the monastery every year fifty measures of grain. The thought came to him to confirm the gift by signing over a village to the monastery, and he sent a gift certificate in Cyril's name. But the Saint, on receiving the certificate, thought to himself: "If we shall own villages, there will come from them only noise and cares for the brethren, and our silence will be interrupted; we shall have settlers and contracters. Would it not be better for us to live without villages? For the soul of one brother is more precious than all possessions." And returning the certificate to the boyar, the Saint wrote to him: "If you desire, O man of God, to give the village as a house of the Most Pure One, for the maintenance of the brethren, then instead of fifty measures of grain, which you have given us up to now, give one hundred measures if you can; we shall be content, and keep the villages yourself, since we do not need them and they are not useful for the brethren."

As great as was the Saint's care for the spiritual salvation of the brethren, no less did he care for their bodily deliverance in moments of peril. It happened that some of his disciples, in fulfillment of his will, went fishing on the lake. A fierce storm caught them in the middle, so that waves passed over the boat and threatened them with death. A man who was standing on the shore, seeing their plight, hurried to inform St. Cyril, who, taking a cross in his hands, rushed to the shore. By the sign of the cross he immediately calmed the waves and the monks who had been thus delivered landed safely ashore. Another time a fire occurred in the monastery and the brethren could not extinguish it, for the flames surrounded the building on all sides; but the Saint, taking the cross with faith, rushed right to the place where the cells were burning. A layman who was in the monastery laughed at the seemingly vain zeal of the Elder, seeing that it was impossible to extinguish the flames. But the Saint, standing with the cross right opposite the fire, raised to God his prayers, which were more ardent than the fire itself, and the flames, as if shamed by his prayers, suddenly went out. At that minute God's wrath struck the one who had laughed at the Saint, and suddenly all his members became weak. He understood his sin and asked for mercy, and by the same sign of the cross before which the fire had stopped, the Saint restored health to the penitent.

News of the Saint's miracles spread far. Prince Michael of Belevsk, with his wife Maria, had sorrowed for eight years over their childlessness, and having heard that the Lord accepts all the prayers of the Saint, he sent to him two boyars, asking his prayers for the termination of their sterility. The foreseeing Cyril, even without opening the prince's message, met the emissaries with these consoling words: "Since, my children, you have performed a difficult journey, I trust the Lord and His Most Pure Mother that your labor will not be in vain, and that God will grant your Prince the fruit of childbearing." That same night Prince Michael saw in a dream a radiant elder, adorned with gray hairs, with three vessels in his hands, who said to him: "Receive from me that which you have asked." The same apparition occurred also to Princess Maria, and both with joy revealed the vision to each other. After three days the Saint ordered the keeper of the cells to let the emissaries go, giving them only one and a half loaves of bread for their journey, even though they had with them eight persons. Surprised at such meagerness, they asked that there be given to them more bread and fish because of the long journey and the deserted places through which they had to travel, but the Saint let them go in peace, saying that even that was sufficient for them. And truly, at their first night's lodging they were convinced of the inexhaustiveness of their provisions, and, after a journey of ten days, they even brought them to their Prince. The messengers told him the words of Cyril: "Do not grieve, for the Lord will grant him what he asks"; and the Prince and Princess were filled with joy. With faith they accepted as a blessing the bread that remained from the journey, gave all the members of their household to eat of it, and all those afflicted with illnesses in their home became immediately healed. To Prince Michael two sons and a daughter were born, as foretold by the three vessels, and from that time on he had great faith in the Saint, supplying him with alms for his monastery. Princess Maria herself told all that had happened to them to one of the Saint's trustworthy monks, the strict Ignatius the silent, who personally passed it on to the writer of the Saint's Life.

THERE WERE MANY disciples of the Saint, like this Ignatius, who were renowned for the holiness of their lives. Among them was Herman, whose obedience was catching fish. With the blessing of the Saint, he never returned with empty hands when he was sent, and he always obtained enough for the brotherhood's table, even though he fished only with a hook. St. Cyril allowed fishing by net only for the feast of the Dormition, because of the many people who came then; such was his moderation in everything. Herman, to the last day of his life, remained in constant labors, not missing a single church service, and after his blessed repose he appeared in a vision at night to his friend Demetrius, with whom he was bound by ties of spiritual love. As this Demetrius had visited him during his illness, so Herman, from beyond the grave, wished to console his friend, who had fallen into a severe illness, by his visitation. "Do not grieve, brother Demetrius," he said to the sick man, "one more day and you shall also pass on to us." Demetrius, rejoicing at the visit of his spiritual brother, announced to others his foretold repose, and on the designated day passed on to the Lord, leaving after him the remembrance of his virtues.

The Saint's disciple Christopher, who was later Superior of Cyril's monastery, had a brother Sosipater, who fell into a severe illness. Seeing him losing strength, Christopher hurried to St. Cyril to announce that his brother was already dying; but the Saint answered, smiling, "Believe me, child Christopher, not one of you will die before me. But after my departure, many of you shall follow me" – which later happened, since there was then a great mortality around the monastery. But none of the brethren fell ill during the lifetime of the holy Elder, and even Sosipater rose up from his malady. Such were the great gifts of the Saint, granted to him because of his great love for God, according to the word of the Saviour: Ask and ye shall be given (Matt. 7:7). For this was said not only to His disciples, but to all believers; and so St. Cyril, in the name of Christ, performed miraculous deeds.

Not long before his repose, St. Cyril called together all the brethren of his monastery, of whom there were then 53 serving the Lord together with him, each according to his strength; and in the presence of all he entrusted the building of the monastery to one of his disciples, Innocent, naming him abbot even against his will. He called God as witness that nothing be removed from the monastic rule, but that all remain as in his lifetime; but he himself desired utmost silence, in order before death to give himself over to the contemplation of wisdom in his cell. From his great ascetic labors his feet could no longer serve him in standing in church, and he performed the cell-rule sitting down. But prayer never left his lips, because he wished never to forsake the rule of prayer, even if his bodily strength failed him. With great difficulty he could serve the Divine Liturgy only rarely; and when he became extremely weak, his disciples brought him in their arms to church.

Pentecost came, and for the last time the Saint performed the Divine service; but on the Day of the Holy Spirit, when his patron saint, Cyril of Alexandria, was commemorated, while still strong in spirit, he began to weaken completely in body. All the brethren with tears gathered around him in the cell, wishing to die with him. Some said to him: "If you shall leave us, Father, this place will be empty, because many will leave the monastery." But the Saint answered them: "Do not grieve over this, but rather understand that if I shall obtain boldness and my deeds shall be pleasing to God, not only shall this place not suffer any loss, but it will grow even larger after my departure; only preserve love among yourselves." It is evident that this testament before his death was deeply impressed on the hearts of the brethren, since from that time on these words have always been written on the icons of the Saint, on the scroll which he holds in his hand.

The lamentation of the brethren, nonetheless, did not stop. The Saint, wishing to console those who were weeping, said to them: "Do not grieve, brothers and children, in the day of my rest, because for me the hour to rest in the Lord has arrived. I entrust you to God and the Most Pure Mother of God; may She preserve you from all the temptations of the evil one, and my son Innocent shall be abbot in my stead. Have him in place of me, and he will make up your shortcomings." Much else the Saint said for their consolation, himself being in such a state of joy that it was as if someone from foreign and distant lands were returning to his homeland. He rejoiced in the hope of future good things and had only one care, that nothing be removed from the c;nobitic rule and that there be no bickering among the brethren. The monks, kissing him with tears, asked his final blessing, and he, as a childloving father, blessed all, forgiving them and mutually asking forgiveness for himself. In the exact minute of his separation from union with the body, he succeeded once more in receiving communion of the Life-giving Mysteries of Christ and, with prayer on his lips, he quietly entrusted to the Lord his laborloving soul. A fragrance sensed by all suddenly filled the cell, and the Saint's face became radiant, even more than during his lifetimes there was nothing deathlike in it. With lamentation the disciples placed the body of their beloved Father upon the burial bed and carried it into the church to the singing of psalms.

At the very moment of the Saint's repose, the Saint's cell-attendant, Auxentius, who had been among the first to come to his desert, was in the village, suffering from a severe fever. With a high temperature, as if in a certain rapture, he saw before him the blessed one with a cross in his hand, and together with him another priest, Florus, who had recently died after great ascetic labors. The Saint blessed his cell-attendant with the cross, and at that moment he was healed of his sickness. With joy Auxentius rushed to his blessed instructor, in order to inform him of his healing, not knowing that he had already reposed; and he met the funeral procession. Throwing himself on the holy relics, he confessed his healing before everyone, and this somewhat consoled the brethren. With honor they gave to the earth the muchsuffering body of their Abba, on the ninth of June in the year 1429. At thirty years of age St. Cyril had been tonsured in Simonov; he lived there for thirty years, coming to this place already in his sixtieth year; and he lived for thirty years more in his monastery, until he attained the perfect age of ninety. Even more miracles occurred after his departure, over his sacred tomb, than he had performed during his lifetime; all of them were written down in their time, and in them can be seen the special care the Saint took of his monastery.


The heart of St. Cyril's Monastery of Belozersk


The Monastery's towers, seen over White Lake


General view of St. Cyril's monastery across the waters of White Lake


INNOCENT TOOK the Saint's place and tried in everything to preserve his commandments, in order to be worthy of his selection; he himself had learned obedience for eleven years from the great Ignatius the silent. A year did not pass after the departure of the blessed one, when with the coming of autumn almost the whole brotherhood, as if agreeing among themselves and St. Cyril, left this life – more than thirty out of the 53 who had been with the Saint. Thus was fulfilled his prophetic word to his disciple Christopher; and last of all Abbot Innocent departed to the Lord, being replaced by Christopher.

When Christopher was Superior, there was an apparition of St. Cyril to one of the brethren, Theodosius by name. This Theodosius had come to the Saint during the latter's lifetime, sent by the boyar Daniel Andreevich, who, out of love for the monastery and the Elder, wished on his death to endow a village to the monastery, only wishing that Cyril send to inspect it beforehand. But St. Cyril replied: "In my lifetime I do not require villages, but upon my death do as you please." To the monk such speech seemed derogatory, and he grieved over the Saint's reply. However, when he saw the miracles with which the Lord glorified the tomb of his departed Abba, great feeling overcame him and he greatly regretted that he had called upon himself the displeasure of such a preceptor. A little later St. Cyril appeared to his disciple St. Martinian (who was appointed abbot in the St. Therapontes monastery) and said: "Tell brother Theodosius that he should not grieve and should trouble me no longer, since I have nothing even against him" – thus consoling Theodosius, who saw in this an answer to his prayer. Is not this manifestation of the Saint's love, even from beyond the grave, most touching?

Gradually the brotherhood grew, and the monastery had to be enlarged. Thus everything in it was renewed, excepting only the c;nobitic rule, which was preserved uninfringed; and during this time healings flowed unceasingly from the Saint's tomb, drawing to him ever more of the zealous faithful.

Once Prince Michael Andreevich, grandson of Donskoy, decided to visit his homeland of White Lake, together with his wife Elena, whose feet were afflicted. He was still far from the monastery, when to one of the elders at night, as if he were awake, it seemed that he stood at the tomb of the blessed Cyril, and suddenly the tomb opened of itself, the Saint came out as alive, and sitting on his tomb he said: "Child, great guests wish to come to us and in great sorrow; but we should pray for them that the Lord deliver them from such sorrow, because they are our benefactors." St. Cyril again lay down in his resting place, and the tomb closed of itself. The elder sprang up and with astonishment told his spiritual father of this; and indeed, after five days the pious Prince and Princess came to pray to the Saint, and the Princess was healed. The gladdened Prince rewarded the monastery with abundant alms, and from that time on both had even greater faith in St. Cyril.

Thus, although the blessed one had lived in the desert, the glory of his virtue, as if on light wings, flew into distant lands, because the city on top of a mountain could not be hidden; in truth, the Lord glorifies those who glorify Him. With boldness the Saint could say about the children whom he had gathered during his lifetime and after his death: Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me (Isaiah 8:18), since his care for them extended even beyond the grave. Just as the streams of fresh water that feed the earth and satisfy those thirsting for refreshment are not diminished, so also the healings from the relics of saints are limitless when the faith of those who run to them does not fail. Physicians, having used all their medicines, sometimes request others; but not so the saints, who use faith alone, without which all the rest is vain, according to the word of the Gospel: Thy faith hath saved thee, and According to your faith be it done unto you (St. Matt. 9:22, 29).

In the days of Abbot Cassian, the learned hieromonk Pachomius the Logothete was sent from the Holy Mountain of Athos by the Grand Prince Basil the Dark and Metropolitan Theodosius, in order to write the Life of St. Cyril from the words of his disciples who had witnessed his righteous life. Most of all did he learn from his disciple St. Martinian, who had lived with the Saint from his youth.

Among the great saints of St. Cyril's monastery, in addition to those already noted, may be mentioned St. Joseph of Volokolamsk, the champion of severe c;nobitism, who left a testimony of how strictly the Saint's disciples revered the Saint and observed his rule; St. Sabbatius of Solovki, the anchorite who laid the foundation of another great monastery of the Northern Thebaid; and St. Nilus of Sora, founder of skete-life in Russia, the pinnacle of Russian monasticism.

And indeed, St. Cyril inspired great faith and love toward himself and his Rule, not only during his lifetime, but even after his death. And this is why his monastery, like St. Sergius', was for a long time a foundation stone of monasticism for the whole North of Russia.


DOCUMENTS OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH

RUSSIA AND THE CHURCH TODAY

TWO CONTEMPORARY DOCUMENTS OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH IN THE USSR

TRANSLATORS' INTRODUCTION

When during the last two years the articles of Boris Talantov on "Sergianism"1 became known in the West, the depth of the crisis which is currently being undergone by the Moscow Patriarchate was revealed to the world. In these articles the Church consciousness of a most sensitive thinker within the Patriarchate itself came to the very bounds of "schism" to a point just one logical step short of rejecting the Patriarchate itself and acknowledging that the true Russian Church is not to be found in the Patriarchate at all, but in the so-called "Josephite schism" of 1927, in what is popularly called the "Catacomb Church." After reading Talantov's reflections on "Sergianism," some Orthodox believers in the West began to wonder and to hope: what if Talantov or someone else in the Patriarchate were to follow his reflections on "Sergianism" to their logical conclusion? Or, alternatively, what if someone in the Catacomb Church itself were to speak out and make known the authentic voice of Russian Orthodoxy today, uncompromised by even the slightest taint of "Sergianism"?

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1 Complete English text in The Orthodox Word, 1971, no. 6; complete Russian text in the weekly Nasha Strana, Buenos Aires, May 9 and 23, 1972.


This latter alternative, under the conditions of Church life in the Soviet Union today, was almost unthinkable. By the very nature of the Catacomb Church its members do not take part in the movement of religious protest by signing petitions for the opening of churches and the like because the very existence of their churches is illegal and secret. More profoundly, they do not write criticisms of this or that aspect of the activity of the Moscow Patriarchate, as did Talantov, the Moscow priests, and others because they reject the Patriarchate altogether and thus have no interest in merely "reforming" it. They do not sign their names to documents of any sort, for that would betray not only themselves, but also numbers of their fellow secret believers.

And yet, by God's great mercy, the "unthinkable" has now happened. The two documents here printed are direct documents of the Catacomb Church, the first such documents to appear since the epistles of the Josephite bishops in 1927-29. The authors, of necessity, are anonymous; but the language and the content of the documents make it clear that they were not written by any ordinary believers, but rather by theologians who are very likely priests or bishops of the Catacomb Church. The importance of the documents can scarcely be overestimated. From Soviet and emigre sources alike the mere existence of the Catacomb Church can be documented through all the years from 1927 to the present; but these are the first sources in over four decades to give the actual voice of the Catacomb Church from inside the USSR.

The main theological-ecclesiastical point of these documents is a repetition of the argument of Metropolitan Joseph and the other bishops who protested the "Declaration" of Metropolitan Sergius in 1927: that Sergianism, even if it does not change dogmas, canons, or rites, has done something far worse in perverting the very nature of the Church, thus s;nn;ng against her internal freedom and placing itself outside the Church of Christ.

But beyond this basic point – which reveals that the thought of the Catacomb Church has not at all changed in 45 years – the present documents offer an invaluable commentary on Church life today in the Soviet Union. As the documents themselves state, they are an "eyewitness testimony" of religious life in the Soviet Union, and they bring up such crucial matters, rarely if ever discussed elsewhere, as the position of the Moscow hierarchs in relation to ordinary believers; the attitude of the latter toward the hierarchs and toward the sermons they hear in Patriarchate churches, the decline of Church consciousness among ordinary believers, leading sometimes to a "magical" view of the sacraments; the fact and the difficulties of "converts" to Orthodoxy today in the USSR; the Church as organization versus the Church as organism, the Body of Christ; the essential "catacombness" of all genuine religious life in the Soviet Union, whether inside or outside the Patriarchate; and the perversion by the Patriarchate of Christian virtues such as humility in order to use them for political ends and crush believers in the name of Orthodoxy. In exposing many of the sad results of the Sergianist concordat of 1927, these documents do not appear as merely another of the recent protests against the Patriarchate; they belong to a different dimension, and in a sense they are more "objective" than any protests from within the Patriarchate could be: they represent the free and independent voice of the authentic Russian Church, which can look on the whole Russian Church situation and on the betrayer hierarchs of the Patriarchate calmly and without bitterness for the simple reason that it does not regard them as Orthodox. But at the same time there is no note whatever of "fanaticism" or "sectarian" mentality in these documents, which regard the Patriarchate as fallen, perverted, and outside the Church, but not yet as entirely beyond hope of deliverance; and they look to the future All-Russian Council, after the fall of the Communist Yoke, for the restoration of normalcy to the Russian Church.

Finally, and perhaps most important for Orthodox Christians outside of Russia, the authors view the Russian Church situation not in isolation, but in the context of the situation of world Orthodoxy. They view the Communist Yoke as a prefiguration of the reign of Antichrist, and the battle between Russian Orthodoxy and Anti-Christianity as merely the central point of a struggle which is world-wide. Boris Talantov had come to a similar conclusion when he branded the Moscow Patriarchate as "a secret agent of worldwide Anti-Christianity." And indeed, no sensitive observer can fail to notice that the basic position of Orthodoxy in the USSR which these documents reveal is different from the situation outside of Russia chiefly in degree rather than in kind. Many of the basic problems are the same: the profound ignorance of what Orthodoxy is, the political and other influences which enter Church life and attempt to swerve the Church from her spiritual path, the weakening of the spirit of confession; the basic difference is only that the Orthodox Churches of the free world voluntarily follow the path of apostasy which is followed in the Soviet Union under coercion. The true Orthodox Christians of the free world, in a profound sense, are already a "Catacomb Church" as against the official apostate bodies that are everywhere recognized as "Orthodox."

The two documents were illegally circulated (in samizdat) in the Soviet Union in the spring of 1971 and came abroad in several copies (the two documents always together) which were received by the Possev publishing house in Frankfort am Main, by Radio Liberty in Munich, and by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The translation presented here has been made from the Russian texts circulated in April of this year by Possev. The two titles and all parentheses, italics, and footnotes are as in the original, except where a "translators' note" is specifically indicated.

I. RUSSIA AND THE CHURCH TODAY

With time faith will decline in Russia. The glitter of earthly glory will blind the reason: the word of truth will be in disgrace. But in defence of faith there will arise from among the people those who are unknown to the world, and they will restore what has been trampled on.

THIS PROPHECY belongs to Porphyrius, the ascetic of Glinsk monastery.1 It was published in 1914 as an epigraph to one of the books devoted to the veneration of the Name of God.2 The publishers, referring these words to their own lukewarm times, did not know the immeasurable depth of Russia's fall into the abyss which the Elder Porphyrius had foreseen. But soon, within a few years after these words became known, there burst upon Russia that gigantic catastrophe of which the first part of the prophecy testifies. Now, when already more than a half-century has passed from the moment when a God-fighting uprising unparalled in human history began, and in the midst of the continuation in Russia of this fight against God, the opportunity has presented itself to us to make an attempt to arrive at an understanding of the destiny of the Russian Church, in the perspective of the past fifty years and of her position today.

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1 Father Porphyrius, at first a priest in the world, rose against the unrestricted liquor business, for which he suffered much injustice; he spent some time ir Valaam Monastery, and ended his life of great asceticism as a holy man of the Glinsk Monastery in 1868. (Trans. note.)
2 The Orthodox Church on the Veneration of the Name of God and on the Prayer of Jesus, St. Petersburg, 1914, published by Ispovednik.


For the course already of a number of decades, from the moment of the famous Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Starogorodsky) of July 16/29, 1927, and the proclamation of him as Locum Tenens (we will not touch here on the question of the canonical legality of his authority in the Church, first as Locum Tenens and then as Patriarch), the only voice speaking to the world in the name of the Russian Church (in Russia) has been the voice of the Moscow Patriarchate. It is precisely the Moscow Patriarchate that testifies to the world concerning the destiny of Christianity in Russia, and precisely she, as the only Russian Orthodox church recognized by the Soviet government, that takes care, supposedly, for the salvation of Orthodox Christians and the enlightenment of the "peoples of the USSR" (that is, within the bounds of her jurisdiction).

But what is the nature of her activity? To what has the condition of Orthodox Christians come in Soviet Russia as the result of the rule of two patriarchs, Sergius and Alexis? And before what does she now stand, on the eve of the election of a new patriarch?

As concerns the official declarations of the Moscow Patriarchate, which are oriented toward world public opinion, there is no need to stop on them in detail; even without this, these declarations are zealously propagated and passed off for truth, even though it is known to everyone that they are one and the same constant lie which consists of the attempt to convince the world that there are no religious persecutions in the USSR, that freedom of religion exists in the USSR, etc. It is also well known that this lie exists to cover up, by means of the Church's voice, a directly contrary condition.

But the dimensions of the lie and its significance can be correctly evaluated only by an immediate eyewitness and member of the Russian Church, who bears the whole burden of religious life in contemporary Russia. And the present essay can be viewed precisely as the testimony of eyewitnesses.

AT THE PRESENT TIME in the relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the government there is preserved a status-quo on the basis of the Sergian Declaration of 1927. This is the only fundamental, and in its way "symbolical" document that defines relations with the government and the whole actual activity of the Moscow Patriarchate up to the present day. In view of its exceptional importance, it should be the subject of a special analysis, even though it was many times subjected to deliberation in the '30's.1 However, now we can make only an essential observation.

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1 Trans. note: A number of the epistles on this subject by the Catacomb bishops of that time have appeared in English in The Orthodox Word. For the epistles of Metropolitan Joseph, see the issue of 1971, no. 1; Bp. Dimitry of Gdov: 1971, no. 2; Bp. Victor of Glazov: 1971, no. 3; Bp. Maxim of Serpukhov, 1970: no. 3, p. 155; Bp. Hierotheus of Nikolsk: 1970, no. 5.


The basic idea of the Declaration is the development of Orthodox life on all levels under the condition of loyalty to the new political, socrat, and economic order of the government. At first look we have before us an appeal to exclusively spiritual life, purified of the worldly-political sympathies which had been grafted on to the Church in the past. The Declaration evades by silence only one point: the significance of ideology in the new government, Metropolitan Sergius somehow "did not notice" the role of the Party's ideological guidance in the new governmental life, although the Bolsheviks from the very beginning announced the total irreconcilability of their ideology with any other. But it is precisely in this that the whole essence of the Declaration and of the whole subsequent history of the Moscow Patriarchate is contained. All who were not in agreement, according to the idea of the "Declaration," were not ideological but rather political "enemies," while Sergius and his successors, so well received by the Bolsheviks, bound the Church hand and foot by means of loyalty not so much to the government as, primarily, to Communist ideology.

WE CAN DO nothing else than be bitterly convinced, according to the information that comes to us, that neither the West nor the Eastern Churches understand (and, perhaps, do not wish to understand) all the complexity not only of the outer, but also of the inner condition of the Russian Church. But at the same time, there is scarcely to be found in Soviet Russia a believer who has not experienced an acutely agonizing inner conflict with the policy of the Moscow Patriarchate. For any believing Christian, being one of the members of the Body of Christ, cannot help but feel his own personal responsibility in her life. The thought of this cannot help but arise in a believer at the sight of the condition in which the Russian Church finds herself. It is clear to everyone that this constitutes one of the manifestations of faith. This conflict occurs with special acuteness in the newly converted in those who, by God's mercy, even now come to the Faith of Christ.

This fact of conversion in itself seems truly extraordinary in Soviet conditions. Without any doubt, there exists a manifest influx of believers into the Church, despite the fact that a governmental machine unprecedented in power and scale is directed toward the extermination of the very feeling of faith in "Soviet" man. Every conception and even the very memory of God and religion, it would seem, have been banished from the life of the satisfactory Soviet inhabitant. The Church also has been brought to manifest silence – however, to a hypocritical silence, since in order to assure the world of the good state of church life in Russia the mouth of her official representatives is open, one may say, uninterruptedly. The Moscow Patriarchate does not so much as think of any kind of apologetics, even though is it not now and precisely "before kings and governors" that those who consider themselves successors of the Apostles should be witnessing the truth of the Christian Faith? Alas, the Apostolic voice of enlightenment does not resound in the Moscow Patriarchate. But, nonetheless, Russian people by the unfathomable ways of God are brought by themselves into the House of God: for where else are they to go in search of truth? Here is a striking testimony that in truth the Spirit bloweth where He will. We see also obvious examples of God's Providence for man, when another world is suddenly opened up to him; we know also how a "chance" encounter, a "fleeting" conversation, the testimony of history, even a brochure on "scientific" atheism become, sometimes without its being realized, a turning point in a man's spiritual life. And then, when he decides, finally, to transform his life and he comes to the Church – here not infrequently there occurs a profoundly dramatic conflict. Often a new convert, having felt the truth of Orthodox Christian doctrine, comes to a priest and asks to be baptized by him. Then, obtaining in the priest a spiritual father for himself, and having been reborn by the grace of baptism, the believer turns to church life with all the power of his newlyenlightened soul. He wishes to feel himself – and he does feel himself to be a child of the Church, the child of his spiritual father. And then, havink found himself within the church enclosure, without any kind of special knowledge, but only by force of an awakened Christian religious feeling, he suddenly sees that the school of spiritual growth for which his heart thirstsdoes not exist! Church life is in profound and total disorder; there can be no talk of any kind of parish life not to mention monasteries. He has nowhere from which to acquire experience in prayer; no one can answer many of the questions which arise before him both in his personal and in public life. But to all the new convert's perplexities his instructor evasively replies that it is a "difficult situation," "conditions aren't right," there is "pressure," and so forth. Further, in confidential conditions he can even explain more directly that the whole matter is one of pressure from the authorities, but that out of the "higher considerations" by which the Patriarchate is guided, one must be patient, humble oneself, compromise. And the believer, filled with profound respect for the priestly rank, in reverence before the person from whom he received baptism, knowing, finally, his own inexperience and sinfulness – accepts with trust the instruction of his spiritual father. And now he strives to crush in his soul this feeling of dissatisfaction with the situation of the Church and her relations with the government; he tries to convince himself that he simply does not understand the difficult situation of the episcopate and its wisdom; and he tries to convince himself that in general everything is satisfactory enough. As a result, he is raised on duplicity from the very beginning of his Christian life. The same thing occurs also with the new generation of believers from traditional families, with the sole difference that in the majority of cases they are raised already from childhood in a spirit of unconditional acceptance of all the actions of the Patriarchate. The utilization here of the commandment of humility is very significant: the Christian understanding of humility – the battle against pride – is utilized as a justification for the Church's inaction when she is attacked whether externally or internally. "Our kingdom is not of this world" – say the defenders of the Patriarchate, justifying her inaction while the Church is being destroyed in Russia. But is not the Church-organization a manifestation of the Church – organism, and is it not called to action in the world? Otherwise why try so hard to preserve precisely the organization, making for its sake all possible concessions?

The appeal to false humility before the enemies of the Church is the only form of obedience" which is actively installed into the hearts and minds of the faithful in Russia. Such an "upbringing" is conducted by various means, one of them being directly from the ambo – even by those priests who are considered the best. Sometimes in church right in the sermon one can hear a priest declare, addressing the faithful: "It isn't your business to judge hierarchs"; or: "Your business is to pray and that's all"; and so on. Why does the necessity for such exhortations arise? After all, it is well known that the Orthodox Church has always emphasized precisely the participation of the Church's faithful themselves in the destiny of the Church; that it is precisely they who accept any decision. It is sufficient to recall, in this con. nection, the Encyclical Letter of the Eastern Patriarchs in 1849. Evidently the Moscow Patriarchate now holds to another opinion in her practice. We think this is bound up with the fact that the people, knowing neither canons, nor rules, nor the history of the Church, and sometimes not knowing even Holy Scriptures – this church people in its heart feels the unsatisfactoriness of the Church's situation and often does not believe the hierarchs. "We have a good bishop – he's a believer" one may hear among the people. Such praises are not apt to make one feel any better! Thus does the Patriarchate instil into her flock norms adopted from no one knows where.

It is absolutely clear that the general church awareness in Soviet Russia stands in sharp contradiction to the declarations of the Patriarchate concerning the "freedom" and "flourishing" of the Russian Church. It is essential to remark on this because in actual fact it does not manifest itself, since the lower clergy, by virtue of canonical submission, as is well known cannot enter into deliberation over the decisions of the upper hierarchy – or else it is threatened with interdiction, as was the case with the well-known letter of the two priests, N. Eshliman and G. Yakunin.1 The laymen also are silent, fearing to become a sacrifice of the authorities-and, what is most important, trusting the clergy, as has already been said. But in reality a paradoxical situation exists, in which even the most "pious" sons of the Patriarchate, striving consciously to follow her policy, in actual fact interiorly stand against her. Just try in conversation with such a believer to say concerning some respected hierarch: "Our Russian Soviet hierarch Anthony Bloom (or Basil Krivoshein)" – this will evoke a burst of indignation! But why? True enough that they are not Soviet citizens, but, after all, these respected persons are in the jurisdiction of the Soviet church, in her spiritual body! In accordance with the canons they participate in her voice! (Let us add: not only in accordance with the canons; in addition, by their silence they confirm the Patriarchate's lying assertions.) The expression "Soviet church," of course, will evoke yet greater indignation. But why? Our question is called forth not at all by any separation between the conceptions of Sovietism and Communism, as is done by some people out of naivete or out of hypocrisy, because it is clear that historically these two forms of governmental order and ideology are inseparably connected. No: a church which is directed in its life by an agreement with the State and its direct orders (the control of government officials over the bishops is known to all) is, naturally, a State church. And here there is no help from hypocritical citations of the separation of the church from the State in the USSR, because the real condition of affairs is evident to all. This is not merely the church of the Soviet period, but the church of the Soviet State, precisely the Soviet church, concerning which the official declarations of the Patriarchate also give sufficient testimony: let us recall, for example, the letter of loyalty of Metropolitan Pimen to Kosygin after his designation as Locum Tenens.

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1 The Moscow priests whose open letter to Patriarch Alexis in 1965 concerning uncanonical conditions within the Patriarchate resulted in their suspension. (Trans. note.)


Nonetheless, a Soviet believer does not wish to and cannot call his mother-Church "Soviet," and even if he cannot explain it, all the same he feels that there exists not only the Patriarchate which is bound up with the Soviet authority, not only the church organization, but there exists also the holy and pure, one, catholic, and apostolic Church, in which the lying, de. ceit, and hypocrisy which proceed from the mouths of the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate have no part. A Soviet believer cannot force his tongue to call Metropolitan Anthony and Archbishop Basil or some revered hierarch in Russia itself "Soviet hierarchs" – a truly blasphemous combination of words. May the Lord forgive us that we are forced to use it! The church consciousness naturally strives to find its spokesmen among the higher clergy in the same Soviet church, the only one in sight – something which is extremely difficult to do, since the KGB1 vigilantly sees to the advancement of "suitable" candidates.

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1 The Soviet secret police (trans. note).


The Soviet authority from the very beginning put, with regard to the Church, a radical question: "either us – or you." This question remains until now in all its acuteness and irreconcilability. The aim of the Soviet authority was and is not at all the subjection of the Church to itself, and not even her enslavement, but rather her total and definitive annihilation. Militant atheism is the State doctrine of the USSR. The subjection, the enslavement of the Church are only intermediate moments, steps toward her total annihilation. And every believer realizes this situation of the Church to the degree of his faith.

While the governmental authority openly announces its battle against faith and the Church, the Patriarchate gives the appearance of not noticing this, and even more, it strives to convince everyone of the contrary. From the most general point of view of a man who believes in Christ and the Church, the Body of Christ, what can one call this if not an evident betrayal of the Christian Faith?! It goes without saying, and besides they have been assuring us of this since the time of Metropolitan Sergius, that the Church is being betrayed for her own benefit, that at the price of "insignificant" concessions one may preserve (!) (that is, buy) the primary thing, the life of the Church; while those not in agreement (for example, the authors of this essay) are declared, of course, politicians who supposedly are thinking not of the Church but of political interests, social order, and so forth. The tradition of accusing those not in agreement of politics was begun by Metropolitan Sergius in his "Declaration" of 1927. We believe the significance of such an accusation under Soviet conditions, even in the form of a hint, is apparent to all.

The Moscow Patriarchate repeats similar arguments at every convenient opportunity without any interference from the authorities. And yet "for some reason" one cannot manage to object to them publicly in Russia. And abroad these "arguments" not infrequently are believed, whether it be from hypocrisy or from want of faith. But they demand the severest kind of reply.

Here we wish to ask the Moscow Patriarchate (although we have no hope of receiving a reply): If disagreement with you on the question of relations to the government is politics, then what is your agreement with the Soviet religious policy, the aim of which the eradication of all faith in God-is known to everyone? Are you not yourselves politicians, and incomparably worse ones? And at the moment when enemies again have surrounded Christ in order to take Him again to torture on the Cross, how does your "Hail, Rabbi" sound?

In order to perform a betrayal of Christ, one need not declare oneself His enemy; one need not even slander Him. A kiss is sufficient.

Of course, all this is not news today. Already for decades the world and Christians have been gradually schooled in the acceptance of militant warfare against God as a real, everyday and ordinary, natural fact. It fell to Russia's fate to be the center of this warfare, and the false testimony of the Patriarchate before the world in this period is especially criminal. For this warfare, without any doubt, has a truly universal-historical significance for the destiny of all Christianity, for the destiny of the whole world. It is evident that reconciliation with the Soviet warfare against God in Russia and in the whole world is a testimony not only of a decline of religiousness and faith, but also of a catastrophic fall of moral conceptions in general. The longer this process will continue, the closer humanity will move toward the edge of the abyss!

We repeat again what Soviet propaganda openly declares and over which the Moscow Patriarchate maintains a shameful silence: in the Soviet State ideology and politics are inseparable; politics are only a tool of ideology; ideological coexistence is impossible; the manifestation of any idea foreign to Sovietism-Communism is already lready politics and hostility. In this light it is evident that the very prideful pretensions of Metropolitan Sergius and his successors to save (!) the Church1 in Russia are only a hypocritical screen for spiritual worthlessness, for it is clear that Christian faith is being preserved in Russia only by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. But from the external "causal" point of view it is evident that the Communists cannot liquidate entirely the visible church organization because they are striving to create an impression of freedom of conscience in Russia in their battle for world supremacy. They would destroy in a moment, with satanic malice, both Metropolitans Pimen and Nikodim, if they had the opportunity. This signifies that the Soviet kingdom is without doubt an image of the future kingdom of Antilchrist; in a long chain of historical analogies (there is no room here to speak of them) with the picture of the Apocalypse, this analogy is without doubt the closest one to the present day. What we ourselves see today, as also for the course of decades, in Russia, is a stern warning to mankind, a call to repentance – which, alas, the world does not accept.

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1 In an interview with representatives of Leningrad believers in 1927 Metropolitan Sergius brazenly declared: "Yes, I am saving the Church." (Trans. note: An account of this interview as recorded by one of the participants may be read in The Orthodox Word, 1971, no. 2, pp. 84ff.)


Returning to the friendly relations of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Soviet regime, we should note that we do not intend to idealize either the Synodal church, or the church of the epoch of Muscovite Russia, or the Byzantine church. We believe that Church and State are distinct by nature and are always foreign to each other to some degree, as Church and world. Therefore, every alliance of Church with State is in some measure unnatural; but from this it is even more evident that an alliance of the Church with a militant anti-Christian State is anti-natural. This is why it is brought about in hypocritical forms, under the appearance of the "separation" of the Church from the State.

What is it, after all, that the Moscow Patriarchate "saves" at the price of its submission to the State? To this the answer is: the sacraments, liturgical life for the benefit of the people. Let us see how true this is. There are some tens of churches in Moscow, in Leningrad, a few each in other large cities; but what is happening in the whole of Russia? In the Volga region? In Karelia? In the Urals? In Siberia? In the Far East? In the northern Caucasus? In the North? What did the Patriarchate "save" in all these immense expanses, where tens of millions of people live? Do we really not know that the churches everywhere there have been destroyed, with the exception of a negligible few? It is an ordinary event when collective farm workers take children hundreds (!) of kilometers to be baptized, and the priests send them back: after all, one is obliged to present a passport, and as is well known, passports are not given out to collective farm workers to keep! Do we really not know that in vast segments of the population there is not only no faith, but there is simply no possibility to find it, since in actual fact in all these immense expanses there are not only no churches, but not even any books. The ordinary Soviet man does not even know who Christ might be, and he has never heard of the Trinity; having seen by chance representations of saints in an art album or in a closed church, he knows only that these are "gods." We said above that an influx of believers into the Church can be observed; naturally, this is observed more in places where there are more churches, people, books – in Moscow, in Leningrad. We see in this the undoubted action of grace, but one must call blasphemous the attempt to justify the inactivity and negligence of the hierarchy by the fact that believers come "themselves" to the Church, all the more in that this occurs in a quantity that is insignificant on the scale of the whole of Russia. And more than this: for many pure souls the evident double-facedness of the Patriarchate constitutes an obstacle to their joining the Church.

However, perhaps the Patriarchate has protested, has fought against the closing of churches? Perhaps she has attempted to demand the opportunity for religious enlightenment of the people? Alas, we do not know of a single, even the most timid, statement of the Patriarchate in favor of the opportunity for a minimal maintenance of religious life. Individual believers and their groups write an endless multitude of complaints and demands for the opening of churches, and some of these have gotten abroad; but has there been even a single case where the Patriarchate supported such demands? We do not know of such cases, and this clearly testifies to the genuine abyss between the church people and the hierarchy. With our own eyes we see how the shepherds shepherd themselves. We see how the thief comes and plunders the flock, for the hireling is not a shepherd and careth not for the sheep. Behold the literal indication of the Gospel! It is not surprising, in the light of all that has been said above, that the Soviet church has renounced the very martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church, the numberless choirs of which adorn her and are her glory. But we believe that our true holy hierarchs Vladimir, Peter, Cyril, Joseph, Benjamin – and with them the great multitude of other known and unknown hierarchs, monks, and laymen headed by Patriarch Tikhon stand before the Throne of God, glorifying God and praying for the Russian Church, the Russian land, and the whole world. And it cannot be doubted that it is by their righteous prayers and the prayers of other saints and the present-day confession of those who are for the most part un. known to the world, that the Russian Church stands, and not by contrivances, truly lying ones, to "save" the Church of Christ by way of some kind of negotiations with satan. Before the greatness of the martyric exploit of the great hierarchs in the recent past, the "merits" of Sergius and Alexis, such as the dispute with Fr. Sergius Bulgakov1 and the like, are ridiculous.2

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1 Trans. note: In the 1930's, having learned from the fiasco of the "Living Church," the Moscow Patriarchate tried to present itself as theologically "conservative," and thus it condemned the heretical "Sophiology" of Fr. S. Bulgakov. Such "conservatism" on a particular point, of course, is far outweighed by the submission of the whole church to Communist ideology and purposes.
2 Here we cannot refrain from citing an example of how the Russian church shows concern for the imprisoned and persecuted sons and daughters of... the Greek people. Patriarch Alexis wrote in this regard (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1968, no. 3, p. 1, On the Situation in Greece and the Church of Greece) to Archbishop Jerome of Athens: "In the days of the Feast of the Theophany we have the moral necessity (!) to address to you our word of uneasiness of soul over those sons and daughters of the Greek people, who for their views and strivings for freedom and democracy have for a long time been unjustly confined in prison. We address to you our brotherly appeal to raise your hierarchal word, which could have its influence, for the liberation of all of them from prisons and camps, which without doubt would serve for the restoration of normal life in Greece and bring joy to all men of good will. This statement of yours would be a gift acceptable to the Lord Jesus, the Saviour of the world (!), Who came to lay down His life for the deliverance of many, "to proclaim release to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bruised' (Luke 4:18). With brotherly love (signature)." And there are a multitude of such examples.
We do not know whether it is necessary to comment on this "moral necessity" in the mouth of the head of a church who not once in his whole 25-year activity in the rank of Patriarch ever remarked that the sons and daughters of his own homeland for the course of decades have undergone such horrors of actual genocide, not to speak of prisons and concentration camps of which, to their good fortune, the Greeks have never dreamed. Therefore, it is clear what relationship the late Patriarch Alexis and his present successors had and have to any opposition to the Soviet regime: this is not an entirely innocent withdrawal from politics!


In Russia now there is beginning a very slow and almost unnoticeable awakening from the great shock by which she has been paralyzed for the course of decades. Individual voices of protest are appearing in the midst of the public, attempts to stand against the death-dealing movement of the Party – Soviet machine. What is the position of the Russian Church with regard to these voices?

Those priests who still have a conscience of necessity lead a double life. On the one hand, such a batiushka carries out the "loyal" policy of the Patriarchate with regard to the State, that is, he limits himself in church to the minimum ritual requirements. On the other hand, subjecting himself to every danger (if he is sufficiently honest), he transgresses this line: he celebrates baptisms secretly (without registration), tries to attract someone to the Church (which he cannot do openly), gives the Gospel and spiritual books to read, and so forth. Thus, authentically religious life always has in reality a "catacomb" character. But the opportunities for its development are insignificant: after all, the lower clergy is in the leash of the Patriarchate and cannot overstep the limits of the concordat. It need not even be said that the higher clergy in essence has no contact at all with the believing masses. The contemporary hierarchs are genuine princes of the church, for the most part as far from the people as, let us say, the Secretaries of the Regional Committees.1 And indeed, why should they get close to the people? What can they say to the people, they who have bound themselves by loyalty and submission to an anti-Christian authority? The Soviet church hierarchy, not desiring to become a "catacomb" church, has been converted into a self-isolating "church." It is foreign to the people and does not try to get near to them. The contemporary Soviet man, stupefied by vodka and political enlightenment, looks at churches with a stupid-indifferent look, not expecting from them any kind of voice that could warm him and reveal the truth to him. There is no such voice, but man thirsts for it because he is weary from the endless lie everywhere. True, the forms of the Divine services are fundamentally the same as before, the rites for the time being (for the time being!) are not being changed. Yes, liturgical life exists. But of what sort is it? The absence of opportunities for any kind of correct church life deprives believers of preparation for the sacraments. Communion is accessible essentially to anyone at any time, because faith in the church people has been widely replaced by superstition, and this means that the relationship to the Sacrament also acquires essentially, as it were, a formal magical meaning: deprived of any conception of a sacrament, believers sometimes come to the Chalice several times each. It is totally forgotten that this is a great and fearful Sacrament, before which Angels tremble, in the words of the Holy Fathers. Truly, the profound carelessness that may be observed toward the Sacrament of the Eucharist is possible only in the absence of the fear of God. Magism is present also in Soviet hierarchs, inasmuch as the awareness of their hierarchal dignity is turned in them within themselves. Shut up in their own inaccessibility, they as it were compensate for their non-participation in the life and sufferings of the Church. This is accompanied by profiteering on the profound respect of believers for the priestly rank. Here there is manifested a conviction of their own exclusive indispensability, that is, a conviction that the preservation at any price of the position of the hierarchy is precisely the preservation of the Church.

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1 The factual heads of the Communist Party organization in each region. (Trans. note.)


"If everyone goes underground," say the representatives of the Patriarchate, "then who will take care of the people?" But we have already shown that authentically religious life all the same inevitably strives toward the underground: Soviet actuality itself compels this. It is said likewise that the hierarchs are bad, of course, but that they are also as it were a transitional bridge to the future, when the Church will be free. To this let us say that it is gratifying to us, to be sure, to see faith in the future freedom of the Church; but one must also believe unwaveringly that the preservation of the hierarchal succession in the Church belongs to her Head, Christ, and not to human contrivances; if the meaning of the contemporary upper hierarchy is only in being a "bridge." is it really necessary to seek from the Soviet authority the supports for this "bridge"? This after all is already unbelief in the fact that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her (the Church), if one must seek support from the gates of hell! Or do you think that Christ will not preserve the Church in the midst of persecutions? But where then is faith? To the fate of the Church at the time of persecutions one may apply the words concerning salvation: With men it is impossible, but not with God: for all things are possible with God. Alas, those who have bound the Patriarchate with the Soviet regime are such that there is no hope for her own internal regeneration. Leaning upon the Soviet authority, she will share its fate until the end of the Soviet regime.

The conviction of the apologists of the Moscow Patriarchate noted above, that there will be freedom in future for the Church and Russia, is remarkable in its own way. This conviction is widespread. But we turn to them again with a question: with what do you intend to enter on this period of freedom? Conviction of the future liberation of the Church is precisely the fruit of faith, which, consequently, is alive to some degree. But how can one unite faith in the liberation of our Church by Christ with a conviction of the indispensability of the hierarchy's apostatical compromise with Soviet atheism? In this case the Church, essentially, is identified with the hierarchy, that is, with the church-organization.

All the arguments in defence and justification of the Moscow Patriarchate which we have attempted to examine are contradictory and, in the last analysis, are not serious. They are based on a desire to view the existing situation in the church as natural and, from the spiritual point of view (supposedly), satisfactory. The contradiction, as was shown above, is easily laid bare: when talk is of the external assault upon the church, it is said that "our kingdom is not of this world"; but when the spiritual compromise with the prince of this world is pointed out, it is replied that this is essential for the preservation of the hierarchal succession, churches, etc. that is, the external organization of the church. Naturally, such an indefiniteness testifies to the spiritual unsureness, the internal (not to mention external) disorder of the Moscow Patriarchate. Such a situation cannot continue forever. Religious awareness must either entirely become aware of itself, or else disappear altogether as religious awareness. The latter course, abstractly speaking, is likewise possible: after all, the once flourishing Church of Carthage disappeared. We, however, fortify ourselves with the faith that the spiritual renewal of Russia and the liberation of the Church will yet occur. We believe that if the world does not perish, sooner or later in liberated Russia there will be a Local Council of our Church, to which the fruits of their labors and exploits for the long period without a Council (for one cannot call Councils those convocations of Soviet hierarchs which the Council of Religious Affairs organizes together with the Patriarchate) will be brought forth by the Moscow Patriarchate and by the persecuted Russian "Catacomb" Church, to which the authors of this article belong, and of the continuing existence of which they consider it a sacred duty to bear witness at the first opportunity that has offered itself. To this future council the "Catacomb" Church will bring the testimony of the purity of her faith, unstained by any kind of compromises with the enemies of Christ; for prayer that has been bought is impure prayer. The "Catacomb" Church will bring also the testimony of the exploits in the name of Christ of her martyrs and confessors, whom we have already mentioned above. She will bring also the testimony of her unwavering faith in Jesus Christ, by which alone she has fortified herself and lived already for decades, preserved by Divine grace amidst persecutions and betrayals. For just as the Soviet kingdom is a prefiguration of Antichrist, so also the "Catacomb" Church is the nearest of all prefigurations of the Church at the time of Antichrist the Woman clothed with the sun who has fled to the wilderness.1 Her garments are woven of the exploits of saints. Just as in the time of the Prophet Elijah, the Lord has preserved for Himself seven thousand faithful, until the time known to Him alone.

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1 Apocalypse, ch. 12. (Trans. note.)


Our Church lives a difficult life; her members are mercilessly exterminated by the authorities; we are betrayed by brethren who consider themselves Orthodox. We are scattered like wheat, but we believe that in the hour when it is necessary Christ will send His faithful disciple, who will strengthen his brethren. Together with the Apostle Paul we dare to say: We are not of them that shrink back into perdition, but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul (Heb. 10:39). And this our faith, by which kingdoms are subdued (Heb. 11:33), gives us the strength to await the hour of God's visitation. God is with us, understand, ye peoples, and submit, for God is with us!

II. CHURCH AND AUTHORITY

There is no authority but of God.

Romans 13:1

THE CHURCH DOCTRINE concerning authority is based on the Divinely-revealed word of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans. Every existing authority is established by God. It is given to men for the good, for the ruler is the minister of God, and good is from God. Wherefore ye must needs be in subjection for conscience' sake, for one is in subjection to principles of good. The conscience always accuses injustice, as the Apostle Paul has testified: I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 9:1). Authority is given by God in order to preserve and fulfill the law. But the law, in the Apostolic teaching, can be fulfilled only when it is fulfilled in love. The essence of life is love. And love is life. Love is always revealed in relation to some object. Created human nature in its original form could live only by love for its Creator. He who wishes to live in love inevitably turns to the Source of love, to our Lord Jesus Christ. Where there is no God, there is no love.

But how should one look on the Soviet authority, following the Apostolic teaching on authorities? In accordance with the Apostolic teaching which we have set forth, one must acknowledge that the Soviet authority is not an authority. It is an anti-authority. It is not an authority because it is not established by God, but insolently created by an aggregation of the evil actions of men, and it is consolidated and supported by these actions. If the evil actions weaken, the Soviet authority, representing a condensation of evil, likewise weakens. Evil arises when the Will of God is transgressed. For man this is the transgression of God's commandments. The enemy of the human race instructs in this. Satan wages war with God, and the field of battle is the hearts of men. This authority consolidates itself in order to destroy all religions, simply to eradicate faith in God. Its essence is warfare with God, because its root is from satan. The Soviet authority is not authority, because by its nature it cannot totally fulfill the law, for the essence of its life is evil.

It may be said that the Soviet authority, in condemning various crimes of men, can still be considered authority. We do not say that a ruling authority is totally lacking. We only affirm that it is an anti-authority. One must know that the affirmation of real power is bound up with certain actions of men, to whom the instinct of self-preservation is natural. And they must take into consideration the laws of morality which have been inherent in mankind from ages of old. But in essence this authority systematically commits murder physically and spiritually. In reality a hostile power acts, which is called the Soviet authority. The enemy strives by cunning to compel humanity to acknowledge this power as an authority. But the Apostolic teaching on authority is inapplicable to it, just as evil is inapplicable to God and the good, because evil is outside God; but the enemies with hypocrisy can take refuge in the well-known saying that everything is from God.

This Soviet anti-authority is precisely a collective antichrist, warfare against God. Therefore also the Apostle has testified from the Holy Spirit: There is no authority but of God. Evidently it is our lot to live during the approach of the last times, when the enemy by a form of truth cunningly entangles men, while in essence it offers anti-truth.

After the appearance of the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, the Sergianist church organization irreversibly entered into an adulterous tie with the Soviet State. Immediately there was introduced into Divine services the commemoration of the God-hating authorities. This was a blow at the Christian heart, a sinister trampling down of souls, a mockery against the memory of the ranks of new martyrs. The history of the Church of Christ had not yet known such a terrible fall of a church organization, at the head of which there stood fighters against God.

The pure conscience of the faithful could not accept this. It could not accept the enforced bond of a free, pure organism with evil. It could not accept the bond of an organism of love with hatred for this organism. It could not in eucharistic love be together with the Judas-betrayers. There was only one way out: to depart from evil so as not to commit iniquity.

In the purity of her fundamental principle the Church is always free. Where the Holy Spirit is, there is freedom. Love lives in freedom. The believer with a pure conscience irrepressibly strives toward such an organism, that is, toward the Church of Christ. In an organism of purity and sanctity he receives a free absolution from sin. Christian souls in the Church of Christ are seized by an unfathomable joy of freedom. Then the world is powerless in the spirit of malice, because in the heart love triumphs. It can only physically destroy earthly life, but it is not given it to destroy life that has been redeemed.

Can one leave the Sergianist church? The Sergianists constantly deceive the church people, affirming that in their church there is no perversion of dogma. Our conscience testifies that it is not dogmas affirmed by the Church that have been perverted, but rather the very nature of the Church-the freedom given her by our Lord Jesus Christ has been trampled on. The soul of a sincere believer can never come into contact with the fullness of freedom in the Sergianist church, because the Sergianist sin will constantly torture it. Sergianism has perverted the doctrine of the Holy Church which was handed down by the Apostles and in the writings of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church. Concerning this there is the testimony of the exploit of martyrdom and confession of the saints who have departed from the Sergianist church organization.

In this terrible period of human history – the fall of the world into the abyss of hell – the shattered Christian world, which is close to our heart, must become inflamed with universal love. The sufferings of the Russian martyrs call to a joining together around Christ in a great triumph of love. Then God's love will pour out its grace in abundance on His Church. The Church of Christ will recognize herself, her fullness, and will incarnate this in the last church dogma, which manifestly will show that Sergianism is outside the Church.


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THE ORTHODOX SPIRITUAL LIFE

The Counsels of the Elder Nazarius

XI
CONCERNING ONE'S SPIRITUAL FATHER AND COUNSELLOR OF CONSCIENCE

YOU SHOULD MAKE great effort to see that you confess immediately, if possible, to your spiritual father that in which you have sinned in the hours of the day. If it is not possible to confess this soon, then, as indicated above, you should at least confess everything once a day, after Vespers; and deeds or thoughts of the night, if they occur, should be confessed after Matins. If by some chance it is not possible to do this, for example while travelling or for the lack of a spiritual father, then you can confess, according to need, to a brother of the monastery or to someone else who is close to you who lives a God-pleasing life and has spiritual understanding, that which disturbs your conscience and ask his prayers and blessing. And if you do not have even such a one near you, then in the hearing of the Angels and Archangels, with tears, with self-accusation and reproach and great heartfelt regret, confess to God, beat your breast, and, if your conscience censures and accuses you in anything, place some spiritual punishment upon yourself and do thus until you receive the possibility to confess all this to your spiritual father.

Toward your spiritual father or toward your instructor, to whom you should confess your deeds and thoughts, have love, unwavering faith, and such respect that you judge him in nothing and do not become confused if someone shall criticize and judge him. Even if it should seem to you that he sins, you should still not become disturbed nor lessen your faith in him; but reproach yourself as much as you can, and not him. Say to yourself these words: I, a sinner, have looked upon my father with impure eyes, and in my impurity I judge concerning him, and because of this I do not see his irreproachableness. Accuse yourself thus, pray zealously to the Lord God for his correction, if in very fact he has stumbled. Reflect thus concerning this: The Lord God has permitted a temptation to come upon him; but how can I, a sinner, judge him, seeing neither his deeds nor his repentance? Can I see into his soul? Even if he has sinned, perhaps he has already completely repented and received complete purification from God. Do not allow out of your heart and thought these words also: To his own Lord be standeth or falleth (Rom. 14:4); and who am I to judge?

XII
ON NOT JUDGING ONE'S NEIGHBOR

IT IS FITTING to mention here somewhat more at length and more clearly the question of judgment: how everyone who desires salvation should look at himself alone, and not judge his neighbor.

I suppose that it is sometimes better to fall oneself and rise, than to judge one's neighbor; because one who has sinned is incited to self-abasement and repentance, while he who judges one who has sinned becomes hardened in an illusion about himself and in pride. Therefore everyone must guard himself, as much as possible, so as not to judge.

Examine yourself closely, beloved; can you boast that you have never had part in any sin? Even one who has just been born and has lived a single day in the world – even he has participated in sin, according to the prophecy of David: we are conceived in iniquity and born in sins from our mother's womb. Test yourself and your conscience carefully, beloved, whether you be not guilty, if not in one then in another sin, if not in a great then in a small one, if not in deed then in word and thought. Reflect ceaselessly also on this: that no one can be justified before the Lord by his deeds, and no one can be pure before his Creator; all are sinful, all infirm, all in need of God's aid and mercy. And as we are all created by God alone, and He is the Judge of all, how do you presume to take the Creator's judgment upon yourself? How do you judge your brother before God's judgment, before the coming of Christ? Being the same kind of sinner, how do you judge your brother who has sinned, whose deeds you cannot know exactly, not seeing his thoughts or his contrition of heart? Inasmuch as you cannot either give eternal punishment for sin, or forgive and deliver him from eternal torment, how can you judge?

Keep in mind always these words of Christ the Saviour: Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged (Matt. 7:1-2). And likewise the words of the Apostle: And we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against them that practice such things. And reckonest thou this, O man, who judgest them that practice such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? (Rom. 2:2-3.)

Pay heed also, O beloved brother, to this deed of God's Providence, done to make us cautious, so that we might in every way guard ourselves from judging; it is described in the Prologue, under September 27. There was a certain man of holy life. Having heard of a certain brother that he had fallen into a serious sin, he sighed and uttered these words: Oh, this brother has done an evil thing. And for these words, what a terrible vision was given to him! A holy Angel, at God's command, presented to the one who had judged the soul of the one who had sinned, and said to the former: See, he whom you have judged is dead: where, then, do you command that he be placed,in the Kingdom or in torment? The elder was astonished. Again the Angel said to the elder: Since you are the judge of the righteous and sinners: speak, what do you command concerning this humble soul; do you have mercy, or do you give it over to torments? This he said and became invisible. This was so terrible, and so difficult for the conscience of this holy man that he condemned himself to remain the whole duration of his life in sorrow and inconsolable lamentation. Falling to the feet of the holy Angel, he begged forgiveness and was scarcely forgiven; but later, too, he spent his whole life in lamentation.

In the Prologue under October 22 there is another similar story. A man of holy life, John the Sabbaite, speaking of himself, says: I heard a bad word about a certain brother and I said, Oh! And beloved, I was transported in terror in sleep; and seeing myself standing on Golgotha and the Lord Jesus Christ between two thieves, I strove to bow down to Him. And when I approached, behold, I saw Christ turned toward the Angels who were present and saying to them: Cast him out, for he is an antichrist to Me; before My judgment he judged his brother. And being cast out, when I came to go out the doors, my mantle was held and remained there. And I awoke and said to the brother who came: Evil is this day to me. The brother said: Why? Then I told him all my vision, how I had been deprived of God's protection and grace; and from that day, according to the Lord's word, for seven years I have wandered about the desert, not eating bread or going under a roof or speaking with man; until I saw my Lord and he returned to me my mantle.

Know, O sinner, that it is given to God Alone to justify and to judge His own creation. He sees the deeds and thoughts of everyone and judges each in accordance with his strength and reason: He judges in one way kings and princes; in another way hierarchs, priests, abbots, hieromonks and monks; in another way ordinary people; in one way old people; in another way those of mature years; in another way young children; in one way the healthy; in another way the infirm. And if it is thus: then who can scrutinize the unfathomable decrees of God and condemn his neighbor? It is the Lord Alone Who has created everyone and established everything, Who tests the hearts and thoughts. Therefore examine carefully, whether it be not your own vice that you judge as a sin in someone else, as if you yourself were sinless and without guilt? You torment your neighbor for a small sin, but you do not see and do not feel your own many transgressions. Is this not terrible? The Lord Creator endures for a time your iniquities, while you condemn your brother in a sin and do not reflect that you yourself are arousing the Lord to cease His patience toward you, and to condemn you forever!

O sinner! Restrain yourself from judging your neighbor, even if you have seen him sinning with your own eyes. Strive as much as possible not to judge your brother; for there is one Judge of all, the Son of God. Leave your neighbor's burden to the Almighty, and take care for the burden of your own sins; for you shall give an answer for your own. Do not reject the commandments of God which have been given you; judge not, and you will not be judged. Justify your neighbor and do not judge him, lest you be as a bath which reveals and removes everyone's filth but remains itself always full of filth. Do not rejoice over the fall of your neighbor: for it is only the demons, the enemies of our salvation, who have joy over this, because they themselves have already perished and cannot rise. Strive not to judge, but rather to pray, to weep and lament over him who falls, and to rejoice over him who is rising from a fall and is being saved, lest you yourself be judged by the terrible judgment of the just Judge. Strive to receive justification before the Almighty, saying ever these words to yourself: who am I to judge my neighbor! I am a sinner and a lawless man. And therefore you should accuse yourself, and not others, according to the saying: Do thou first confess thy transgressions, that thou mayest be justified (Isaiah 43:26).

CONCLUSION

AND SO, if you wish to remain peaceful in soul in this life and to receive eternal life; if you seek by the path of virtue to attain unto dwelling with the righteous; then take all these rules and counsels as a law and hold it in love; plant it in the depths of your heart and in your soul, and have it ever in your mind lest you become slothful or through carelessness you neglect any of the rules which have been presented to you. Strengthen yourself every day and hour; read, reflect; and wait with faith until our Saviour Jesus Christ shall look down upon you from above, from His holy dwelling, and shall send you His grace to aid you and shall strengthen your infirmity. Believe that the Holy Spirit will come down upon you and teach you to be yet more skillful, and will instruct you, from time to time, to go from strength to strength and prosper in Divine grace. If you shall remain faithful and firm, you will finally grow unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Strive that you may hear the voice of Christ: Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28). Strive to become worthy to hear the voice of Christ, calling you into the Kingdom of Heaven. It suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force (Matt. 11:12): and therefore if you wish to take by force the Kingdom of Heaven, force yourself with love; bow down your neck under the yoke of the work of Christ; make for yourself internally a kingdom of heaven by means of self-renunciation, patience, guarding of the senses, labors and asceticism for the sake of virtue, by fasting, vigil, submission, silence, spiritual reading and singing, prayers, tears, useful handiwork, and by the enduring of every sorrow that comes from demons and men. If you wish to live with Christ, suffer evil even as Christ suffered evil. If you wish to be the novice of Christ, take up His cross and follow Him, in order to crucify your passions and endure in everything. And you shall be worthy of the Kingdom of Christ and of eternal habitation together with all the Saints who have pleased the Lord. Amen.

The Counsels of the Elder Nazarius conclude with an appendix giving the Elder's "Indication of the most essential spiritual dispositions and virtues," which will appear in the next issue.


Orthodox Bibliography

A HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH ABROAD, edited by Holy loly Transfiguration Monastery in Boston. St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church, Seattle, 1972. 209 pp. $2.50.

IT IS DOUBTLESS symptomatic of the state of Orthodoxy today that this important book which reflects the mature Orthodox thought of one part of Orthodoxy in America should be precisely about the Orthodox immatu ity of a much larger part of Orthodoxy in America. Until the last decade or so the development of what it is perhaps still too early to call American Orthodoxy had been largely unconscious, as it indeed remains in the majority of those who call themselves "Orthodox" today. But, as the history of Orthodoxy in America has made abundantly clear, "unconscious" Orthodoxy is but a step on the road to the sbandonment of Orthodoxy altogether. With some of the Orthodox "jurisdictions," which neither in externals nor in faith have any close resemblance to genuine Orthodoxy, this is more than obvious. But with one of the American "jurisdictions," the American Metropolia, the unconsciousness of its Orthodoxy is not so readily apparent. Its piety, at least in the older generation of Russian priests, is closer to the Orthodox model; some of its churches lack pews and have a more traditional appearance; no open heresy is taught by its hierarchs; and the "theologians" of its Academy enjoy a world-wide reputation for supposedly Orthodox thought. But if one looks very closely one finds that all this is but a shell within which the kernel of Orthodoxy is very dubious indeed. In order to expose the true nature of the Metropolia's Orthodoxy, a crisis was needed some major Orthodox (or anti-Orthodox) event in the response to which it could be seen how really Orthodox the Metropolia was.

Such a crisis was provided in the "autocephaly" offered by the Moscow Patriarchate to the Metropolia and accepted by the latter in 1970. The present book is an examination of the background of the "autocephaly" scandal, and it is a very thorough one, investigating, chiefly from the leading Russian sources and one important French work (in addition to Metropolia sources), the whole church situation of the Russian diaspora since 1917 and the causes for the several schisms from the Russian Church Abroad; the church situation in America; the readiness (or rather, the woeful lack thereof) of the Metropolia for autocephaly; the situation of the Moscow Patriarchate and the possibility of dealing with her as with a genuine Orthodox Church; and the gross inaccuracies and contradictions in the Metropolia's propaganda against the Russian Church Abroad and in favor of the "autocephaly" – which, as the book points out, is actually the fourth "autocephaly" that the Metropolia has tried to proclaim since 1924. The result of this investigation, as the title indicates, is actually in essence a history of the Russian Church abroad and gives by far the best picture to date in English of the reasons for the Russian "jurisdictional" disputes which, while confusing to many who do not know the full picture, are really basically simple and come down to a question of principle, conscience, and Orthodoxy versus the absence (or overlooking) of these indispensable foundations of Orthodox faith and life.

The book of necessity is "negative," even though it is scrupulously objective, frankly pointing out the errors and lack of principle which have caused such confusion and led so many astray from Holy Orthodoxy in our times. For this reason some well-meaning Orthodox Christians may choose to ignore it, seeking to limit themselves to "positive" manifestations of Orthodoxy. But alas, such is the character of our times indeed, such is the whole history of Christ's Church – that without knowing the negative side, the work of the Church's enemies and their often naive and well-meaning fellow-travellers – it is scarcely possible to be a conscious Orthodox Christian at all, for thereby one only holds oneself open to the sophistries of the worldly "theologians" who would make the Church the servant of indifference and compromise. This book is actually a work of confession, comparable for America to the bold underground documents that have lately been coming out of the Soviet Union accusing the betrayal of the Moscow Patriarchate: a cry of conscience from the true Orthodox Christians of America who want nothing to do with the lukewarm, respectable, harmless "fourth major faith" which, sadly, satisfies so many, but who want only the genuine, unchanging Orthodoxy of the Holy Fathers.

The book is the joint work of a group of Orthodox scholars and laymen. It will take its place as one of the essential books for the building of a true Orthodox Christian consciousness in America.

The missionary-minded St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church has also published a number of very informative shorter articles on the Orthodox issues of the day in its "St. Nectarios Educational Series." They may be obtained without charge, and a list of them is available. Order from:

St. Nectarios American Orthodox Church
9223 20th Ave. N.E.
Seattle, Washington 98115


SAINT HERMAN ORTHODOX CALENDAR FOR 1973

Contains, besides the Calendar itself (in which additions have been made to the list of saints), other related features.

Price: $2.00. Discounts to parishes and bookstores: 1 to 4 copies, 25%; 5 or more copies, 40%.

Special price to monks and nuns, seminarians and students: $1.25.

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